December 22, 1965 (20 pages)

NEVADA COUNTY NUGGET solu If the federal bill had been enacted in the form in which it lay quietly in committee for some weeks before its sudden emergence, the issue would have been relatively simple. The bill, in brief, placed a ‘penalty on states which failed to enact regulations for "effective control" of billboards and junkyards along primary highways, Additional funds for purposes of promoting highway beauty also were authorized, Everyone blamed the business ills of the town on lack of free parking. ‘There was a strong feeling expressed that taking out the parking meters was the only solution and the term "ghost town" was used often to describe the future of the village, It was suggested that the meters be removed and the merchants contribute to making up the revenue loss caused by the removal, We went up and down the two block one main street business section asking for yes or no answers to five interelated questions, Those who had no answers were listed as uncommitted, The answers are interesting because they show a trend strikingly like that now being expressed in Nevada City. A total of 39 merchants were interviewed and this is how it went. Do you want free parking? Yes--34, No--4, Uncommitted--1, Do you think free parking « The entire Nugget staff wishes you and yours a joyous Christmas. IN THE FOOTHILLS VEIN would increase business? Yes--37, No--2. Do you think a reported decline in retail business is due to lack of free parking? Yes--29, No--9, Uncommitted--1, Do you think the decline will continue unless something is done to remedy the parking situation? Yes--27, No--7, Uncommitted--7, Would you be willing to contribute to a plan by which the merchants would make up the revenue lost by removal of the parking meters? Yes--17, No--7, Uncommit ted--8, The last. question is the clincher for while everyone is convinced about the cause of the malady, when it The bill was less than perfect, However, deficiencies were fairly well covered by an important amendment providing that state and local governments retained full right-to-legislate-more-restrictively. -The-California Roadside Council and other Roadside Councils had worked hard for this amendment, and, once it was accepted, we had put our full support behind the bill, It was in this quite acceptable form that the bill had come torest incommittee, It was still there, with no action on it in sight, when, in the first week in October, the Congress seemed about to adjourn. Then the unexpected happened, With no time re maining for more than the most precipitate action, the President called for the "Highway Beautification Bill” to be brought out of committee and acted upon at once, The bill was passed, but at an appalling price, The price was the inclusion of a new amend ment, obviously inspired by the billboard and junkyard interests, It provided for "just compensation" for billboards and jun kyards which are required to be removed, in addition to allowance of ample time for their amortization, It even provided for “just compensation” to be paid to the landowners whose land was used for these eyesores, Federal funds would provide most of this “compensation”, A harmless amendment? On the face of it, it may appear harmless; probably it appeared so to most members of the Congress andto the President. The insidiousness of the “compensation” factor is apparent only to those who see in it a denial of the basic principles of zoning; to those who have followed the sound and patient judicial vindication of these zoning principles and their application to roadside control; comes to anteing up, the troops scatter, During that night in Suffern while merchant after merchant stood up and blamed the business decline on the lack of free parking, shopping centers, the shabby appearance of the downtown section and overzealous traffic police,a clean cut young man sat in the back taking it all in with just a bit of a smile on his face, When all the complaints were over, he stood up. "I don't have any lack of customers," he said quietly, "I deal in high quality merchandise and AN OLD REFRAIN IS BECOMING POPULAR HERE to those who have fought this same "compensation" Proposal on state and local levels and in so doing have leamed of the We were doing some cleaning up about the house confusion which would result from adoption of any such proposal--confusion and the other’day and came across a newspaper story we wrote almost 10 years ago, the halting of present billboard removal under local It was written about a little town on the New YorkNew Jersey border called Suffern, Suffern was suffering 10 years ago from lack of business and everyone was blaming it on lack of parking, an old familiar threat, In was this very same provision, amended into State Senator Jack McCarthy's Suffern had a railroad and Suffern was feeling the law. Here in Califomia, the "compensation proposal" good service, place to park," My customers always seem to find a We have not been back to Suffern since we wrote that story, but we are sure they are feeling the pinch of the shopping centers, The refrain that is being sung here lately is like the tune in Suffern 10 years ago, It would be interesting to know what the situ ation will be in the business district of Nevada City 10 years from now, ---Don Hoagland CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY BEAUTY ACT. WAS BADLY WEAKENED The fact that the federal "Highway Beauty Act” was passed and signed into law is, of course, Common knowledge, Our own report on the significance and business pinch from the sprawling shopping centers in nearby New Jersey, but aside from those differences, it was astoundingly like Nevada City and so were the probable effect of this new Act of Congress has been postponed from week to week, pending conference with legal and planning advisors, with our state legislators, and with officials in Washington, is billboard bill in 1959, that caused him to withd raw the bill as "worse than worthless", Then, as now, it was promoted by opponents of roadside control, The California Roadside Council therefore had only _to hear of this amendment to become thoroughly alarmed, It was too late, however, to send out a general call for help, It was too late, we learned, upon our anxious inquiries in Washington, to do any thing at all, The bill was moving rapidly now, and no further amendment would be considered least of all, removal of an amendment which just now had been adopted, As for a presidential veto that, for many reasons, could not be considered even a remote possibility. The fact isthat probably no one in command in that final situation understood the significance of that amendment in quite the way that We grass-roots workers understood it -not the President, nor Mrs, Johnson, whose effort s had inspired "legislation for beauty"; not the "authors" of the legislation (Chairmen of the two Subcommi ttees on Roads), who had been assigned the bills to introduce under their names but who had evidenced little or no enthusiams for them; not our represen tatives in rary RMiawawla @ as ee ee = problems, the supposed causes and the proposed tions, The village board had a big parking meeting, 10Q@&q esl inde Bae reel Pinta eel Vn 10 Nerembhear 99 ies meister esl dit tearlT esl inate Bae S96T ‘ZZ Joquis0eq***3083nN AQuNOD epeAeN** PAA teen 3

NEVADA COUNTY NUGGET solu If the federal bill had been enacted in the form in which it lay quietly in committee for some weeks before its sudden emergence, the issue would have been relatively simple. The bill, in brief, placed a ‘penalty on states which failed to enact regulations for "effective control" of billboards and junkyards along primary highways, Additional funds for purposes of promoting highway beauty also were authorized, Everyone blamed the business ills of the town on lack of free parking. ‘There was a strong feeling expressed that taking out the parking meters was the only solution and the term "ghost town" was used often to describe the future of the village, It was suggested that the meters be removed and the merchants contribute to making up the revenue loss caused by the removal, We went up and down the two block one main street business section asking for yes or no answers to five interelated questions, Those who had no answers were listed as uncommitted, The answers are interesting because they show a trend strikingly like that now being expressed in Nevada City. A total of 39 merchants were interviewed and this is how it went. Do you want free parking? Yes--34, No--4, Uncommitted--1, Do you think free parking « The entire Nugget staff wishes you and yours a joyous Christmas. IN THE FOOTHILLS VEIN would increase business? Yes--37, No--2. Do you think a reported decline in retail business is due to lack of free parking? Yes--29, No--9, Uncommitted--1, Do you think the decline will continue unless something is done to remedy the parking situation? Yes--27, No--7, Uncommitted--7, Would you be willing to contribute to a plan by which the merchants would make up the revenue lost by removal of the parking meters? Yes--17, No--7, Uncommit ted--8, The last. question is the clincher for while everyone is convinced about the cause of the malady, when it The bill was less than perfect, However, deficiencies were fairly well covered by an important amendment providing that state and local governments retained full right-to-legislate-more-restrictively. -The-California Roadside Council and other Roadside Councils had worked hard for this amendment, and, once it was accepted, we had put our full support behind the bill, It was in this quite acceptable form that the bill had come torest incommittee, It was still there, with no action on it in sight, when, in the first week in October, the Congress seemed about to adjourn. Then the unexpected happened, With no time re maining for more than the most precipitate action, the President called for the "Highway Beautification Bill” to be brought out of committee and acted upon at once, The bill was passed, but at an appalling price, The price was the inclusion of a new amend ment, obviously inspired by the billboard and junkyard interests, It provided for "just compensation" for billboards and jun kyards which are required to be removed, in addition to allowance of ample time for their amortization, It even provided for “just compensation” to be paid to the landowners whose land was used for these eyesores, Federal funds would provide most of this “compensation”, A harmless amendment? On the face of it, it may appear harmless; probably it appeared so to most members of the Congress andto the President. The insidiousness of the “compensation” factor is apparent only to those who see in it a denial of the basic principles of zoning; to those who have followed the sound and patient judicial vindication of these zoning principles and their application to roadside control; comes to anteing up, the troops scatter, During that night in Suffern while merchant after merchant stood up and blamed the business decline on the lack of free parking, shopping centers, the shabby appearance of the downtown section and overzealous traffic police,a clean cut young man sat in the back taking it all in with just a bit of a smile on his face, When all the complaints were over, he stood up. "I don't have any lack of customers," he said quietly, "I deal in high quality merchandise and AN OLD REFRAIN IS BECOMING POPULAR HERE to those who have fought this same "compensation" Proposal on state and local levels and in so doing have leamed of the We were doing some cleaning up about the house

confusion which would result from adoption of any such proposal--confusion and the other’day and came across a newspaper story we wrote almost 10 years ago, the halting of present billboard removal under local It was written about a little town on the New YorkNew Jersey border called Suffern, Suffern was suffering 10 years ago from lack of business and everyone was blaming it on lack of parking, an old familiar threat, In was this very same provision, amended into State Senator Jack McCarthy's Suffern had a railroad and Suffern was feeling the law. Here in Califomia, the "compensation proposal" good service, place to park," My customers always seem to find a We have not been back to Suffern since we wrote that story, but we are sure they are feeling the pinch of the shopping centers, The refrain that is being sung here lately is like the tune in Suffern 10 years ago, It would be interesting to know what the situ ation will be in the business district of Nevada City 10 years from now, ---Don Hoagland CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY BEAUTY ACT. WAS BADLY WEAKENED The fact that the federal "Highway Beauty Act” was passed and signed into law is, of course, Common knowledge, Our own report on the significance and business pinch from the sprawling shopping centers in nearby New Jersey, but aside from those differences, it was astoundingly like Nevada City and so were the probable effect of this new Act of Congress has been postponed from week to week, pending conference with legal and planning advisors, with our state legislators, and with officials in Washington, is billboard bill in 1959, that caused him to withd raw the bill as "worse than worthless", Then, as now, it was promoted by opponents of roadside control, The California Roadside Council therefore had only _to hear of this amendment to become thoroughly alarmed, It was too late, however, to send out a general call for help, It was too late, we learned, upon our anxious inquiries in Washington, to do any thing at all, The bill was moving rapidly now, and no further amendment would be considered least of all, removal of an amendment which just now had been adopted, As for a presidential veto that, for many reasons, could not be considered even a remote possibility. The fact isthat probably no one in command in that final situation understood the significance of that amendment in quite the way that We grass-roots workers understood it -not the President, nor Mrs, Johnson, whose effort s had inspired "legislation for beauty"; not the "authors" of the legislation (Chairmen of the two Subcommi ttees on Roads), who had been assigned the bills to introduce under their names but who had evidenced little or no enthusiams for them; not our represen tatives in rary RMiawawla @ as ee ee = problems, the supposed causes and the proposed tions, The village board had a big parking meeting, 10Q@&q esl inde Bae reel Pinta eel Vn 10 Nerembhear 99 ies meister esl dit tearlT esl inate Bae S96T ‘ZZ Joquis0eq***3083nN AQuNOD epeAeN** PAA teen 3